tbgsfandomcom-20200213-history
Simple English Guidelines
This page shows the basic idea behind each of the Central Guidelines. This copy is not exact! To see the copy with all details and proceedings, visit the Central Guidelines topic here. (Careful. This links you to the Text Based Games Forums' copy of the guidelines, which may not be where you started.) GUIDELINES 1: See a violating post? Report it using the Report button. (see 11 - 18) 2: We, all the moderators and administrators of the World Forums Union, are focused on making all of our forums the best they can be. If you follow these guidelines, you can become a good member to our forums. Do: 3: Respect all users. 4: Stay on topic. 5: Help keep the forum friendly. 6: Use the report button well. Don't: 7: Spam. (see 34) 8: "Necropost". (see 23 - 30) 9: Create arguments or "flame wars". 10: Troll / insult other users. (see XXXV) The report button: The report button tells an administrator / moderator that something needs their attention. You can use it to tell us about any of these: 11: Inappropriate material 12: Spam (see 20 - 22) 13: Posts harassing other users / "flame wars" (see 35) 14: Old or inactive topics (see 30) 15: Duplicate topics (similar topics posted two or more times) (see 42 - 44) 16: Commercial spam (topics/posts filled with advertising / links to websites) 17: Your topics (for cleaning) 18: Your topics (to close them) 19: Anything else you think we need to see Useful Posts: 20: A useful post should be relevant and on-topic. If your post has nothing to do with the topic (see 9), or you don’t have anything nice to say (see 35), you should revise or simply delete the posts. all posts 21: A useful post should be meaningful. These posts should be well-built, usually using full sentences. Be sure to check your individual site or forum guidelines: they may say something different. 22: A useful post should be expressive. A common four-word post critisising someone else is usually not very helpful. In fact, it might start a flame war. Instead, it's better to say: "Hey, that's a good idea! However, I don't think that makes sense with what you said before. Can you change it, please?" or something similar, depending on the situation. Remember to follow rules when applying criticism to others' posts, and again, your site or forum might say something different. Necroposting Necroposting is basically posting on an old topic, usually to attract more attention to it. This is also known as a "bump", which is an acryonym for B'ring '''U'p 'M'y 'P'ost. A lot of people will forget about old topics over time, while the remembered ones should only be bumped occasionally. The guess for a topic to be considered "old" is a month or so. The definition of "old" is 35 days since the last post. Necroposting is recommended in the following cases: 23: To point out how old a topic is, if a link sent you there. 24: As an update to an old topic for contributing newer information. 25: To lightly suggest a new feature to the topic. 26: To revive a topic. A bad case of necroposting may be any of these: 27: Spam posting (see 8 - 9) 28: Inappropriate bumping (called "gravedigging") 29: Unnecessary bumping - for example, agreeing to the post above without contributing anything else 30: Outdated topics that remain open - if the point was to say how old it was, use the report button instead. (see 14) '''What is spam? The following messages are considered spam and are not allowed: 31: Messages of or containing repeating words or smilies. 32: "Empty" messages. For example, entering two lines of text, then deliberately holding down the "Enter/Return" button to increase page load time. 33: Commercial advertising. 34: Deliberate off-topic messages, including those used to "dominate" a page or pages of the forum. Offensive posts 35: Don't bully people or put them down. If you think you have been bullied, you have the right to report that post as hurtful or mean. Sometimes, we think that a post wasn't meant to hurt you, and we won't take care of it as you wish, but we're not being intentionally biased - we reassure you that all we do will help you. Administrative / Sr. User Double Posting Rules ''' 36: Whenever double-posting is allowed in a game, it must say in the topic post somewhere that moderators, administrators, and users with a lower timeout, can't post any faster than a normal user can. If it doesn't say that, you can assume that you can post as fast as you can on that topic. '''High Tension Load 37: Any game can be closed for up to three minutes an hour when necessary if an extremely high number of posts are coming in. If five posts are made on a topic in three minutes, a moderator or administrator can close it for a short while. 38: If your game follows the guidelines, then under rule 37, it is a guarantee that your game will be open at least 57 minutes every hour. If it's not, whoever closed it must state a rule describing why it was closed. (For example, if the topic was spam, a moderator would have to say "Rule XII in violation" before closing it.) If not, then the moderator gets a one-point warning. Administrative Topic Closure 39: Topics written by moderators or administrators can be closed using this rule as a reason. Handling of duplicate topics 40: If a topic is duplicated, the older topic will stay open, with exceptions listed under rule 41. If the topic is an open share topic (meaning no rating or sequence is followed), the topics can be merged, but if not, the newer topic must be closed. 41: If a user duplicates his or her own topic, he or she may choose which topic (the old one or the new one) he or she would like to remain open. He or she has two full days to decide, and if he or she doesn't the more popular topic will be chosen. 42: If rule 41 is applied to a set of games, you can't play any of them until either the user makes up his or her mind, or the game is chosen for him or her. Death 43: Don't talk about it. If you do, you'll get three warning points, so you'll be banned for a couple days. You can, however, talk about death as long as you mention whatever's going to die (in one way or another) will come back to life later, and some sites or forums have this rule reduced (but they likely aren't suitable for all ages). Moderation Tool Use in Games 44: If your game needs to use moderator tools in one way or another, it'll be closed. For example, you can't have a game where a topic has to be closed (by a moderator) in order for it to work. Time-Zones 45: If a topic needs you to calculate something using your timestamp, you can assume that they're talking about your timezone unless the topic says something different (if you're confused about different people's timezones, just consult the Time Zone Directory).